New species

This is fascinating -- just when we start to think there can be nothing new in the world comes a story like this -- A Lost World in Indonesia Yields Riches for Scientists. Here are some of the photos they took on this expedition, including some of the new species they found.
Smoky honeyeater:


Six-wired bird of paradise (not new, but hasn't been seen for more than a century):


'Giant White' rhododendron:


new species of treefrog;


golden-mantled tree kangaroo (which had been thought to be close to extinction):

Great line of the day

At Daily Kos, Darksyde writes:

In that bloody light of conflicts past and won, as a son of parents who grew up in a Depression and the ensuing World War, and as a child of the Cold War, let me make this crystal clear: If you think you're going to scare me or my nation into reversing two hundred years of history, becoming a Police State, and subjecting ourselves to a tyrannical Overlord in the form of the President of the United States, then you damn well better come up with a significantly greater threat than that posed by a handful of religious maniacs armed with explosive belts and boxcutters.

Old bums exit there . . .

New bums enter here. Its funny to see how simply furious many of the blogging tories are about the Cabinet picks of Emerson and Fortier.
That said, there's nothing wrong with what Harper did today -- a prime minister has to do what he has to do in order to run the country. He may be a little surprised, however, at how quickly his press honeymoon ends now.
And by the way, I don't think there is any such thing as a "temporary Senate seat", though the media kept reporting it that way today. Once Fortier is appointed to the Senate, I don't think he would ever have to resign, even if Harper expects him to do so. Would you?

Embassies burning

If you are seeing photos of burning embassies and wondering what the heck is going on, read Sisyphus Shrugged - shouting fire in a crowded theater, Piss Christ, Der Sturmer and other speech issues. Here's part of her sensible overview:

. . . full-metal hell didn't break loose until various newspapers in Europe, giving reasons ranging from support of free speech . . . to anti-religious principles (France, of course), went ahead and reprinted the cartoons again. One brave soul printed them in Jordan. He's been fired. The boycott, largely a pipe dream before last week, is now severely damaging danish industry. Meanwhile, the original newspaper, which apparently has more sense than the Prime Minister does, acknowledged that although the publication of the cartoons was completely legal, they were offensive, and apologized for causing offense. European leaders (with, of course, the exception of Denmark and Norway) have pointed out that while free speech is a basic human right, the material printed in this case was deeply offensive and to be condemned.
By this time, of course, the culture warriors of the anti-islamic right had succeeded in attracting enough attention to their antics to draw the attention of the violent extremist wing of the muslim world.
So now embassies are burning and (while mainstream islamic leaders condemn the riots) there is lovely juicy footage of islamic mob violence on every station and in every newspaper just as the effort to escalate against Iran ramps up.
Quel coinkydink.
If you want a real educational experience, go look at the Google hits for this, and read what the LGF wing of the blogosphere has to say about it, and how few facts about the situation they give you (among other things, they uniformly suggest that the boycott and the violence have been going on since the original publication of the images in September rather than since late December or mostly in the past week).
If you want another educational experience after that, Google what the same sites had to say last week about free speech in the matter of Cindy Sheehan's tshirt . . . Free speech means that you have the right to express yourself. You even have the right to be protected by law from people you've offended who want to express their offense in illegal ways. It does not mean that if you act like a dumb [fuck] you're really a brave warrior for truth and the rights of man or anything but a really, really dumb [fuck]. Congratulations, o culture warriors of the right. You've gotten the deep offense and the highly-telegenic violence you wanted. You must, although resembling them closely in many other significant ways, be much happier than pigs in shit . . .

Thanks to Steve Gilliard for the reference.

True patriots

The Washington Post reports on the domestic spying program and toward the end of the article I found some interesting stuff.
First, the National Security Agency machines are not selective:

. . . the agency has acknowledged use of automated equipment to analyze the contents and guide analysts to the most important ones. According to one knowledgeable source, the warrantless program also uses those methods. That is significant to the public debate because this kind of filtering intrudes into content, and machines "listen" to more Americans than humans do . . .

Second, in the NSA version of reality, they haven't actually done anything even if their machines listen to every single phone call and email ever sent anywhere:

NSA rules since the late 1970s. . . have said "acquisition" of content does not take place until a conversation is intercepted and processed "into an intelligible form intended for human inspection."

So the conclusion I draw is that all the phone calls that everybody makes could well be available electronically in the NSA database somewhere and NSA would continue to claim they actually had not "acquired" this data.
You see the hole here, don't you?
The data is sitting there, just waiting to be processed. Just because some NSA supervisor or even some judge hasn't approved it, doesn't mean that the data could not still be used.
To make money, for one thing -- imagine being able to listen in on Bill Gate's phone calls to find out when would be a good time to buy or sell Microsoft stock.
But mainly to keep the Bush administration informed about what the Democrats are up to. Remember that in Karl Rove's universe, absolutely everything is political. Democrats are, by definition, traitors. Cheney said a year ago that voting for Kerry was risking the security of the United States. It wasn't just a cynical ploy -- they really believe this.
So it might well be possible to convince some super-loyal, super-patriotic NSA employees that the Democratic congressional leadership, say, or Howard Dean or the DNC are a threat to the repubic -- particularly if the NSA is also hiring 24-year-old presidential campaign workers like NASA is.
They would think that listening in on Teddy Kennedy's phone calls would be the patriotic thing to do.

He's back!

The delightful prospect of a new war in the Middle East is bringing the old timey neocons out of the woodwork again. This Reuters article quotes Richard Perle advancing the self-serving argument that the lousy intelligence in Iraq justifies preemptive strikes against Iran -- because, after all, the only way you can "try to wait until the very last minute" to attack over Iran's nuclear program is if you are "very confident of your intelligence because it you're not, you won't know when the last minute is".
Time to stock up on the duct tape again, is it?

Ding, dong

Well, I know employers are supposed to be responsible and all that, but in this case I still think its too bad that they didn't just let Dingwall sue.
Now, the Globe is reporting that: "an independent arbitrator . . . concluded that Mr. Dingwall had not resigned, as the government suggested at the time, but had been fired . . . after a prolonged controversy about his six-figure office expense account. A subsequent review by PricewaterhouseCoopers accounting firm concluded Mr. Dingwall's spending was within the rules with minor discrepancies."
Also, its rather disingenous for Stephen Harper to act so amazed now at the news that Dingwall was fired -- he was deservedly shown the door for embarassing the government with his prolifigate spending and inane statements like "I'm entitled to my entitlements" -- which the Conservatives made good use of in in their TV commercials before the election.

Kettle, pot, tables turning, etc

Well, well -- how do ya like them apples?
Surveillance Prompts a Suit: Police v. Police:

The demonstrators arrived angry, departed furious. The police had herded them into pens. Stopped them from handing out fliers. Threatened them with arrest for standing on public sidewalks. Made notes on which politicians they cheered and which ones they razzed.
Meanwhile, officers from a special unit videotaped their faces, evoking for one demonstrator the unblinking eye of George Orwell's "1984."
"That's Big Brother watching you," the demonstrator, Walter Liddy, said in a deposition.
Mr. Liddy's complaint about police tactics, while hardly novel from a big-city protester, stands out because of his job: He is a New York City police officer. The rallies he attended were organized in the summer of 2004 by his union, the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, to protest the pace of contract talks with the city.
Now the officers, through their union, are suing the city, charging that the police procedures at their demonstrations — many of them routinely used at war protests, antipoverty marches and mass bike rides — were so heavy-handed and intimidating that their First Amendment rights were violated.

If

On my way to work this morning, my car was hit on the freeway by someone running a red light -- he was from out of town and just didn't see it. He hit the front fender on the passenger side so my car is totalled.
I'm OK, though I had double vision at first -- very odd sensation, that -- and I am still very sore where the seatbelt hit me and my knee is bunged up from hitting the dashboard -- and the other driver is better than me -- he had an airbag which I did not.
Maybe some slow posting the next few days until my chest stops hurting when I type.
Interesting to think about what might have been, though, isn't it -- if I hadn't had to clean up a broken dish this morning I would have left for work earlier, and if I hadn't pulled into a different lane I wouldn't have been in this fellow's way when he came through the intersection.
Then again, in either of those scenarios he might have t-boned someone in the opposite lane and maybe even killed them, who knows?

Great line of the day

In The State of the Union, Driftglass examines Bush's appeal last night for bipartisanship to clean up the mess he had made:

This is the bitter and divided world you and your minions created, Mr. President. And you did it deliberately, calculatedly and with premeditation. On September 11, 2001, without earning or deserving it, you were handed a Truly United States of America. And for tawdry, partisan motives you and Karl and the rest of your Shitkicker Mafia decided to drive a venomous wedge straight through its heart without any regard of the poison you were unleashing into the body politic. Congratulations; you have reaped what you have sown . . . in the Dubya Era a person can be a Good American, or a Good Republican, but they can no longer be both. And that, Mr. President, is quite obviously the world you wanted all along.

Emphasis mine.

Have you heard the good news?

Great to hear that Alberta is sending cheques to people in other provinces. Well, I'll be watching my mailbox now, too.

Get it? Got it?Good!

The story on dropping the Sheehan charges gives this explanation:

"The officers made a good faith, but mistaken effort to enforce an old unwritten interpretation of the prohibitions about demonstrating in the Capitol," Capitol Police Chief Terrance Gainer said in a statement late Wednesday.

So the Bush administration is enforcing unwritten laws, while at the same time they are ignoring the laws that are actually written down.
Right, I think I've got it sorted out now.

Mr. Bush? Saudi Arabia is calling on Line 2

And Kuwait is on Line 3.
And boy, are they pissed!
But don't worry, boys -- I know you think you understand what you think Bush said. But what you don't realize is that what he said is not what he meant.

Feeling hopeless?

Read this -- Homeless man given highest award for civilian bravery for helping save woman

"2,245 Dead — How Many More??"

Oooo -- how scary! Subversive, even! Arrest that woman! How dare that Cindy Sheehan wear a t-shirt to the State of the Union saying "2,245 Dead — How Many More??" -- such goings-on simply cannot be tolerated in a democracy!
The priceless thing about the whole story is this: in their eagerness to spare King Bush the slightest embarassment, his Brownshirt-Lite Royal Guard have just killed any positive momentum which Bush might have achieved with this speech.
Cindy Sheehan had virtually disappeared from the major news media over the last few months. If they had let her sit in the gallery, wearing her t-shirt during the Bush speech, chances are the network cameras would have panned over her once or twice during the speech and that's it. But now, this needless arrest has put Cindy front and centre again. She was all over the news tonight and will be again tomorrow -- apparently she is going to be on the morning TV shows now too.
Bush's speech is dull news now - stay the course in Iraq, switch to ethanol at home, ho-hum, same-old, same-old.
I'll bet the White House is simply furious.